Leonard Sweet – författare

A Groundbreaking Resource for Preaching

If the church wishes to converse effectively with a culture, it must learn the culture’s language. Today, shifts in technology mean that language is increasingly one of symbols and metaphors, stories and images—not words.

So what does this mean for the sermon, that long-standing, word-based tradition of Christianity?

In this ground-breaking resource, bestselling author Leonard Sweet offers an alternative to traditional models of preaching, one that is fitting to a new culture and a new mode of thinking. The first book of its kind to move preaching beyond its pulpit-centric fixation and toward more interactive, participatory modes of communication, Sweet presents both a challenge and a path forward for a church struggling to maintain its relevance in a post-modern, media-saturated culture.

In his first book conceived and acquired specifically to be delivered electronically, Leonard Sweet contends that the church is blind to the changes that are dragging us into the future. Therefore, it is losing its influence as an agent of change and grace in the world. "There are now some companies who absolutely want to change the world more than the church," writes Sweet. He sees the church at a crossroads. It will either see the future as a new dawn and therefore embrace it as opportunity. Or, it will see the future as dusk and therefore hide from the darkness of the world. Sweet believes that God will be in the future, with or without us, and that an "Acts 27" movement is afoot. This book serves as a "naturalization manual" to help Christians achieve full citizenship in the new, postmodern world. It will teach them how to go from being immigrants to natives. From foreigners in a strange land to people of God, confident and at home in a rapidly changing world.

Are you hungry to hear God’s voice, but don’t know how? Jesus Speaks teaches readers how to listen for the voice of Jesus and how you can grow in your ability to recognize and respond to his voice daily.

While the Lord frequently speaks to us, we don’t really hear his voice until we recognize it. In Jesus Speaks, Sweet and Viola unpack the many ways the Lord speaks to his people today by exploring how the disciples interacted with the risen Jesus—from the Gospels to Revelation. They demystify the process in a warm, practical way, providing insights on how you can recognize the voice of Jesus in your own life.

Separated into two sections, the first provides a big-picture look at how the resurrected Jesus spoke in the New Testament, while the second contains short, actionable chapters filled with scriptural quotes and references. Both sections work together to help you recognize and respond to the voice of Jesus in your everyday life.

Readers will be able to:

Essential for Christians seeking to improve their relationship with Jesus, Jesus Speaks is the long-awaited third volume in the JESUS trilogy: Jesus Manifesto; Jesus: A Theography; and Jesus Speaks.

Introducing a new kind of Jesus biography: Transform the tired and familiar way you have read the Bible into an electrifying journey of rediscovering Christ. In this compelling work, authors Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola reclaim the entire Bible as a gripping narrative about Jesus Christ.

Jesus says, “The Scriptures point to me!” (John 5:39 NLT). But what does that mean exactly?

Virtually every other “Jesus biography” begins with the nativity account in Bethlehem. In this innovative book, Sweet and Viola begin before time, in the Triune God, and tell the complete interconnected story of Jesus from Genesis to Revelation.

Jesus: A Theography is the first book ever written to combine historical Jesus studies with biblical theology, crafting together one breathtaking saga that tells the Jesus story in both Old and New Testaments. This groundbreaking book clearly demonstrates that every bit of Scripture is part of the same stunning drama - what the authors refer to as the theography of Jesus Christ.

Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola (authors of Jesus Manifesto and Jesus Speaks) unfold the greatest story ever told in a fresh and invigorating way. Whether you are a seasoned Christian scholar, a new believer, or someone who is intrigued by Jesus, this book unveils the discoveries of a lifetime, transforming the tired and familiar way we have read the Bible into an electrifying journey of rediscovering Christ.

Jesus: A Theography:

Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola set out on a journey of discovery with one goal: to help restore the sovereignty of Jesus Christ above all else. This led to their national bestseller, Jesus Manifesto. Two years later, they released Jesus: A Theography, beautifully establishing that all Scripture unveils a person—the Lord Jesus Christ. In 2016 they released the final volume in the trilogy: Jesus Speaks. All three volumes of the JESUS trilogy will lead the reader to a deeper understanding of Christ.

Jesus Manifesto presents a fresh unveiling of Jesus, seeking to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in a world—and a church—that has lost sight of Him.

Christians have made the gospel about so many things—things other than Christ. Religious concepts, ideas, doctrines, strategies, and methods that begin to eclipse the beauty, the glory, and the reality of the Lord Jesus Himself.

We know a lot about our Lord, but we don''t know Him very well. We know a lot about trying to be like Jesus, but very little about living by His indwelling life. Jesus Manifesto provides clarity on the most important points of our faith. It is a prophetic call to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in a world and church that has lost sight of Him.

This manifesto emphasizes ten crucial areas of restoring the supremacy of Jesus Christ, noting:

Read this book to see your Lord like you''ve never seen Him before and restore the sovereignty of Jesus in your life.

The church is heading into a “perfect storm” of cultural forces. Will you sink beneath the waves, or ride the winds of the Spirit?An array of cultural forces is coming together to present the church with unprecedented challenge and unequaled opportunity. Such “category 5" realities as postmodernism, postChristendom attacks on belief in God, and the threat of global warming have coalesced to make a “perfect storm” that will leave people uncertain of their place in the world, and all they have previously believed in. Like the disciples when Jesus calmed the storm, the church can cower and cry out for relief. Or, when everything is spinning and whirling in the wind, the church can go out to meet the storm, embrace the gale, . . . and pass out kites.From the Circuit Rider review: "Like other books Sweet has written and compiled, The Church of the Perfect Storm is thought-provoking and compelling. The material flows in such a way that allows readers to grasp the gravity of the situation. However, as with most futuristic material, there is also a sense in which readers may want to know: ''Okay, now what? Where do we need to steer this ship? Are mainline and evangelical churches so off-course as to fail to weather the rising tides that are here and soon coming?'' Readers of this volume may enjoy the description of a post-Christendom world, but they may also want to know more about the prescription for the days ahead. (Click here to read the entire review.)

God raises up Methodists for such a time as this. Here is a ditty Len Sweet’s Methodist grandfather used to sing: A Methodist, a Methodist will I be A Methodist will I die. I’ve been baptized in the Methodist way And I’ll live on the Methodist side. What “genius” of Methodism inspired this kind of love and loyalty in the earlier years of the faith? What did it mean to live in “the Methodist way” and to die on “the Methodist side?” Perhaps it is time to resurrect a neo-Wesleyan identity and to challenge the prevailing “one-calorie Methodism” that characterizes so much of our tribe today. What makes a Methodist? How can we re-ignite the spark of genius that motivated such commitment in our cloud of witnesses? The essence of Methodism’s genius resides in two famous Wesleyan mantras: “heart strangely warmed” (inward experiences with a fire in the heart) and “the world is our parish” (outward experiences with waterfalls of cutting-edge intelligence). For Wesley, internal combustion, the former, led to external combustion, the latter. In the 18th century, Methodists in general (and in their younger years, the Wesley brothers themselves) were accused of being too “sexy.” What else could all those “love feasts” and “strangely warmed hearts” be about? Why else were all those women in positions of leadership? With this book the author hopes to bring back to life some of Methodism’s sexiness so that our current reproduction crisis can be reversed.

When Christians answer the clarion call to be missional, too often it is primarily to feel good or to grow in their own faith. But ultimately we remain unsatisfied because, in the end, it’s still about “me”—my church, my faith, my salvation. Then sometimes inspiration dries up. We forget that Jesus is the head of the Church, which exists at God’s pleasure and disposal. God is birthing a new Social Gospel, meant to reclaim mission and justice ministries as prime directives for the Church, and not with the naive thinking of the 19th or 20th centuries. What are the characteristics of this new Social Gospel? There is an expectation that mission is “with” and not “for” others. There is an acknowledgement that tolerance is not a dirty word and we have to find a peaceable way to live in our intercultural world. It carries the Wesleyan impulse to change the world by working to build God’s kingdom in this world. It offers the grace and salvation of Christ to those in need, believing that none are free unless all are free. It means that we feed the hungry, educate to poor, and equip the powerless in tangible ways.